Summit Towers

In this Illustration Laboratory I created an abstract mountain summit which stands for my personal home. Have fun reading the project!

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

Starting at the foot of the mountain

For my abstract imagination of home, I started by thinking about my favorite places. With the help of a mindmap I soon fond myself in the world of two opposites: mountains and hiking, but also the inner city of my hometown Munich.

Next I thought about the medium and the style. Quite from the beginning I knew I wanted to go with watercolors/gouache, so I did some exercises to get comfortable with the colors. For the style I looked into illustrations of Christoph Niemann, Eyvind Earle and Mary Blair. With these in mind, I started sketching out ideas.

“When everything feels like an uphill struggle, think about the view from the top.”

Already half way up!

First the drawings came out to be very realistic. So I tried breaking it down more. In the end I created a mixture of constructed elements (Art Deco) and more organic structures for the nature. The two opposite aspects also reflect in the contrasting colors of reds and blues.

„Its better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.“ - William Arthur Ward

Enjoy the view from the peak!

In the illustration I included various elements of my home. The most obvious motives are the „Zwiebeltürme“ of the Munich Frauenkirche. I included a small height difference, because of the fact that one tower is actually smaller. The second element is the ladybug. It stands for the Käfer porcelain cups that my family collects every year at the Oktoberfest. The dot pattern in the background for one represents the smell of roasted almonds which spreads during Oktoberfest. On the other hand it also stands for the city hall carillon. Some of the dots form the melody of the bell music piece. The hiking person represents me, as I look at my „summit towers“.

I did most of the work analog with gouache. In Photoshop I did some color grading and minor corrections.

For the product I created my own Käfer porcelain cup, that we would always collect during Oktoberfest. In the background of the second poster you see the statue „Bavaria“ which stands at the Theresienwiese and watches over the Oktoberfest.